When The Sun Shines Poem by zaheer uddin

Can the holy word of God contain
An atom of untruth
Can truth abound from far fetched lies
Guidance from untrue maps

Can there ever be two Gods
Can there ever be two truths
Can there be ever betwo heavens
Or two hells

We cannot just say
Life is gray—
For when the sun shines
The doubts fade away—



IS THE BIBLE GOD'S WORD? Briefly, let me mention that on September 8,1957, the Jehovah's witnesses in their 'Awake' magazine carried this startling headline - 50,000 Errors in the Bible This bold admission on the part of Jehovah's witnesses leads us to only one conclusion. A book which contains 50, OOO errors cannot be the word of God - revelations should be be free of any error? It is worth mentioning that. There are MANY Bibles on the market that are used by different Christian sects and all of these sects say that their book, though different, is the word of God. Such Bibles are: The Revised Standard Version 1952 & 1971, New American Standard Bible, The Holy Bible; New International Version, the Living Bible, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures used by Jehovah Witnesses, Roman Catholic Version and the King James Version. Let me pose another question: if a 'Holy' book contained conflicting verses would you still consider it to be Holy? Most likely you will say of course not. Let me share with you some conflicting verses both in the Old and New Testaments: II Samuel 8: 4 (vs) II Samuel 8: 9-10 II Kings 8: 26, II Samuel 6: 23 Genesis 6: 3 John 5: 37, John 5: 31 I Chronicles 18: 4 I Chronicles 18: 9-10, II Chronicles 22: 2 II Samuel 21: 8 Genesis 9: 29, John 14: 9 John 8: 14, Only two contradictions of the New Testament have been mentioned,

Jesus born from the beginning of eternity Was Jesus born from the beginning of eternity? let us examine this in the context of history. Did JESUS or his followers ever mention this - is there anything in the Scriptures to support the above statement? surprisingly there isn't a single verse in the Scriptures where Jesus ever says that he was born from the beginning of eternity or that he was composed of the same essence as that of God. I would like to quote Francis David (1510-1579)

'The church`s God son who is supposed to have been born of the substance of God from the beginning of eternity is nowhere mentioned in the scriptures nor the God son who would be second person of the trinity descended from heaven and become flesh this is only human invention and superstition as such should be discarded.' (Francis David by W.C Gannett)

In this regard the argument of Arius is irrefutable Arius was a leader of Christians of North Africa and vehemently opposed the Pauline Church at the Council of Nicea in 325 A.C he always appealed to reason and stated ' If Jesus in reality is the son of God, he argued then it followed that the father must have existed before the son.Therefore there must have been a time when the son did not exist.Therefore it followed that the son was a creature composed of an essence or being which had not always existed.Since God in essence is Eternal and Ever Existent, Jesus could not be of the same essence of God. To his opponents he would say ' Where is the fault of my deduction and where does my syllogism break down' (Jesus a Prophet of Islam by Mohammad Ata ur-Rahim pg 92)

IS JESUS THE SON OF GOD The only verse which the Christians produce as proof to substantiate this claim sonship; Mathew 3: 17, 'And Lo a voice for heaven, saying, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, ' is used to support divine Sonship, then there should be no other verse that contradicts or gives equal divine Sonship to another person or persons in the Old or New Testament. However, many references were found in the Old and New Testaments that mentioned someone other than Jesus as having a divine Sonship to God In Psalm 2: 7, the Lord said to David: '...Thou art my son: this day have I begotten thee.' From the above it appears that God has more than one son exactly how many sons does God have? ? ? ..
In this regard ARIUS argued that it was impossible to ascribe the act of generation to God. If the act of generation is attributed to God it destroys the singularity of God.it also ascribes to God corpeality and passion which are attributes of man and implies that God is subject to necessity which he is not. God is alone eternal, alone ingenerate. Alone without beginning. alone. Good. Alone almighty alone unchangeable and unalterable. he goes on to state that since Jesus is finite, he is other than God who is eternal. it is possible to imagine a time when Jesus was non existent which again demonstrates that he is other than God Jesus is not of the essence of God but a creature of God like all other creatures and dependant upon God for his grace while God is dependant upon nothing. like all man kind Jesus has a free will and a nature capable of leading him to acts which are either pleasing or non pleasing to God. However although Jesus was capable of acting in a manner displeasing to God. his own virtue kept him from doing so. (Jesus a Prophet of Islam by Mohammad Ata ur-Rahim pg 109)

Soon after the disappearance of Jesus from Earth, there was a definite and widening divergence between the followers of Jesus and the Pauline Church which was later to become the Roman Catholic Church. As the Pauline Church grew more established it became more hostile towards the followers of Jesus. It aligned itself more and more with the rulers of Roman Empire. and the persecution which to begin with had been directed at all who called themselves Christians now began to fall mainly on those who affirmed the divine unity. Attempts began to be made to change their beliefs and forcefully to remove those who refused to do so.together with the books their used. Naturally those who deviated from the teachings of Jesus were prepared to change the Scriputures and even introduce false writings in order to support their opinions. John Toland a famous historian in his book 'The Nazarenes' records these words of Iranius was one of the early martyrs of the Unitarians ' in order to amaze the simple and such as the ignorant of the Scriptures of this truth, they obtrude upon them and Inexpressible multitude of Apocryphal and spurious scriptures of their own devising' Toland continues ‘ we already know to what degree imposture and credulity went hand in hand in the primitive time of the Christian Church, the last being as ready to receive as the first to forge books. The evil grew afterwards not only greater when the monks were the sole transcribers and sole keepers of all books good or bad but in the process of time it became almost absolutely impossible to distinguish history from fable or truth from error as to the beginning and original monuments of Christianity. How immediate successors of the Apostles could so grossly confound the genuine teachings of their masters which such as were falsely attributed to them or since they were in the dark about these matters so early, how came such as followed them by a better light and observing that such apocryphal books put upon the same footing with the canonical books by the fathers and the first cited as the Divine scriptures no less than the last or some books which such as we reckon divine were disallowed by them I propose these two other questions Why all the books cited as genuine by Clement of Alexander, Origen, Tertullian and the rest of such writers should not be accounted equally authentic? and what stress should be laid on the testimony of those fathers who not only contradict one another but are also often inconsistent with themselves in their relation of the very same facts. Toland goes on to say that when these questions are asked of the wooden priests and divinilings instead of meeting the arguments, they begin to call those who raise the questions heretics or concealed heretics. In this regard the Quran states as follows The Quran 2: 79 says: 'And woe to those who write the book with their own hands and they say: 'This is from Allah (God) .' To traffic with it for a miserable price! So woe to them for what their hands do write, and woe to them for what they earn thereby! ' John Toland cotinues 'Since the Nazarenes or Ebionites are by all historians unanimously acknowledged to have been the first Christians. or those who believed in Christ among the jews. With which his own people he lived. they having been the witness of his actions and who were all apostles. Considering this. I say how it was possible for them to be first of all others who should form wrong conceptions of the doctrines and decisions of Jesus(for they were made to be the first heretics) and how come the Gentiles who believed in him after his death. by the preaching of persons that never knew him to have truer notions of these things who whence they could have their information but from the believing Jews' The question of the origin of Jesus, his nature and relation to God was not raised among the first followers of Jesus. That Jesus was a man who was a prophet and one who had been given many gifts by God was accepted without question. Nothing in the words of Jesus or the events in his life on earth had led them to modify this certainity. According to Aristides, one of the earliest apologists, the worship of the early Christians was more purely monotheistic than even that of the Jews. It was into this circle of sincere followers that Paul of Tarsus walked. The teachings of Jesus as the Son of God were not preached by Jesus nor accepted by Jesus, but were taught by Paul as supported in Acts 9: 20: 'And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God.' Paul claimed to have an access to Jesus which had been denied to the closest followers of Jesus while he was on earth. The teachings which Paul claim he had been given did not tally with what the apostles had heard from Jesus.It is understandable that they were therefore suspicious of his conversion and considered his revelation unreliable. Many probably suspected that he was no more than a spy posing as a follower of Jesus (The Jesus report by John Lehman pg123) Paul not only rejected both Moses and Jesus but asserted that he was a law unto himself. ' All things are lawful unto to me, but I will not be brought under the power of any'(I Corinthians 7; 12) when people could not accept this he responded by saying ' For if the Truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory, why yet I am also judged a sinner(Romans3; 7-8) Although Paul knew he was lying he felt that the means justified the end. But it is hard to understand how TRUTH WOULD ABOUND FROM A LIE. If this reasoning is taken a step further then Jesus could be equated with God and could even be his son and so on an so forth. Paul reasoned that since that Jesus had died, the law which had bound Jesus and his followers was no longer necessary he gives his reasoning as under ' Know ye not brethren for I speak to them that know the law. how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth- -For the woman when hath a husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth but the husband be dead she is loosed from the law of her husband. so then while her husband liveth, she be married to another man she shall be called an adulteress but if her husband be dead she is free from that law so that she is no adulteress though she is married to another man.Wherefore my brethren Ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God (Roman 7; 1-4)
This analogy clearly indicates that Paul made a distinction between Jesus and Christ. Now they were no longer married to Jesus but to Christ who brought another law, it was therefore necessary to follow Christ and not Jesus! ! ! Thus anyone who held to Jesus's teachings had gone astray. It was with the use of this reasoning that Paul assembled the doctrine of redemption and atonement a theory which Jesus had certainly not taught This theory was a great success as in so many words it preached that a man could do what he wanted and not face the inevitable consequences of his actions provided at the end of the day he said ' I believe in Christ'. Paul's reasoning had two major consequences. It not only resulted in further changes to what Jesus had taught but also prepared the way for completely changing people's idea of who Jesus was - - He was being transformed from a man to a Conception in peoples minds Paul's theology was based on his personal experiences interpreted in the light of contemporary Greek thought. Jesus was deified and the word of Plato was put in to his mouth. The theory of redemption was Paul's brain child a belief completely unknown to Jesus and his disciples was based on the belief in the original sin. the crucifixion and resurrection thus a synthetic religion was produced. Heinz Zahrnt an historian describes Paul 'a corrupter of the Gospels of Jesus' Werde another historian describes him as the second founder of Christianity ' the discontinuity between the historical Jesus and the Christ became so great that any Unity between them is scarcely recognizable ' Schonfield another historian wrote 'The Pauline heresy became the foundation of Christian orthodoxy and the legitimate church was disowned as heretical (John Lehman Jesus report p 123-126)
so the man Jesus became confused with a mythological Christ. Belief in Jesus however does not necessarily mean belief in a resurrected Christ. Whereas the immediate followers of Jesus had based their lives on his example. Pauline Church was based on a belief in Christ after this supposed crucifixion and the life and teachings of Jesus while he was alive is no more important. There was a shift in emphasis from what the Scriptures said to what the leaders of the church said. Fra Fulgentio was reprimanded by the Pope in a letter saying 'Preaching of the Scriptures is a suspicious thing, he who keeps close to the Scriptures will ruin the Catholic faith' In his next letter he was more explicit warning against too much insistence on the Scriptures' which is a book if anyone keeps close to; he will quite destroy the Catholic Church (Tetradymus by John Toland) More and more people are aware that the Christianity they know has little to do with the original teachings of Jesus. Christ of the established Church as almost nothing to do with the Jesus of history and does not in itself help Christians towards the truth. The present dilemma of the Christians is illustrated by what the Church historians of the present century write. Adolf Harnack states in his book (outline of the History of Dogma) ' By the 4th century the living Gospel had been masked in Greek philosophy. It was the historians mission to pluck off the mask and reveal how different had been the original contours beneath' but then Harmack points towards the difficult of fulfilling the task by saying that the doctrinal mask worn long enough can reshape the face of religion. ' The mask acquires a life of its own, the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, infallibility and all propositions seconding these dogmas were the product of historic decisions of situations that might have turned out quite differently. Nevertheless, early or late, product or reshaping force, the dogma remains what it has been from the beginning, a bad habit of intellectualization which the Christian picked up from the Greek when he fled from the Jews. According to Johannes Lehman another historian, the writers of the four accepted Gospels describe a different Jesus by the one who can be identified by historic reality Lehman quotes Heinz Zahrnt ' if Historical research could prove that an irreconcilable anti thesis exists between the historical Jesus and the Christ as preached and therefore that belief in Jesus has no support in Jesus himself that would not only be fatal theologically as N.A Dahl says but would also mean the end of Christology. Yet I am convinced that even then we theologians would be able to find a way out - - was there even a time when we couldn't? —But we are either lying now or would be lying then'

The Gospels. Out of the four Gospels Mark and John are silent about the birth of Jesus and Mathew only casually mentions it. Then again Luke contradicts himself by giving a human genealogy to Jesus. How could the 'inspired words' of God get the genealogy of Jesus incorrect.See Matthew 1: 6-16 where it states 26 forefathers up to Prophet David, and Luke 3: 23-31 says 42 in number.thus there is a discrepancy of 16 people between the two men. if forty is the average age of each man then there is a discrepany of 640 years. Or for that matter, give a genealogy to Jesus who had NO father? See II Kings 19: 1-37, now read Isaiah 37: 1-38. Why is it that the words of these verse identical? Yet they have been attributed to two different authors, one unknown and the other is Isaiah, who are centuries apart; and yet, the Christians have claimed these books The earliest Gospel is that of Mark's which was written about 60-75 AD. Mark was the son of Barnabas's sister. Matthew was a tax collector, a minor official who did not travel around with Jesus. Luke's Gospel was written much later, and in fact, drawn from the same sources as Mark's and Matthew's. Luke was Paul's physician, and like Paul, never met Jesus. By the way, did you know that the names Marks and Luke were not included in the 12 appointed disciples of Jesus as mentioned in Matthew 10: 2-4? For two hundred years it was hotly debated whether the Gospel of John should be accepted as a reliable account of the life of Jesus It is worth noting, and well known throughout the religious world, that the choice of the present four 'gospels' of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) were imposed in the Council of Nicea 325 CE for political purposes under the auspices of the pagan Emperor Constantine, and not by Jesus Constantine ratified other decisions in the Nicene Creed such as the decision to call Christ 'the Son of God, only begotten of the father.'. My question was: what Gospel did Jesus preach? Of the 27 books of the New Testament, only a small fraction can be accepted as the words of Jesus, and only of the 27 books are known to be attributed as the Gospel of Jesus. The remaining 23 were supposedly written by Paul The permission to call 'According to' writings the Gospel was not given by Jesus nor by any other divine guidance. These writings; Matthew, Luke, Mark and John, were never originally to be the Gospel. Therefore, Mark 1: 1 can not be a true statement that his writing is the gospel of Jesus. Literally, hundreds of gospels and religious writings were hidden from the people. Some of those writings were written by Jesus' disciples, and many of them were eyewitness accounts of Jesus' actions. The Nicea Council decided to destroy all gospels written in Hebrew, which resulted in the burning of nearly three hundred accounts. If these writings were not more authentic than the four present gospels, they were of equal authenticity.. Even today, the whole of the Protestant word, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and other sects and denominations condemn the Roman Catholic version of the Bible because it contains seven 'extra' books. The Protestant have bravely expunged seven whole books from their word of God. A few of the outcasts are the Books of Judith, Tobnias, Baruch and Esther... What passes off, as the 'Gospels' today are the works of third party human hands. From the brief points mentioned above, and the fact that Biblical scholars themselves have recognized the human nature and human composition of the Bible (Curt Kuhl, The Old Testament: Its Origin and Composition, PP 47,51,52) , there should exist in the Christian's mind some acceptance to the fact that maybe every word of the Bible is not God's word. Indeed, it is so strange and ironic, knowing that none of Paul's epistle to the Romans, more than 430 verses, were ever formulated by Jesus. Paul should have made direct reference to the pristine teachings of Jesus, if only the former claim for apostleship by divine inspiration was indeed true. Instead, large parts of his epistles' Biblical quotations (notably those in the Epistle to the Romans) were taken from the Old Testament - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy,2 Samuel,1 Kings, Psalms, Proverbs, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Hosea. His epistles were, indeed a product of tedious efforts, but that does not make Paul far better than any of the other men who authored the Bible, nor does it make him a Prophet. The Muslim Position 'An eminent scholar Christian history admits that the present day Christianity is a mask on the face of Jesus but goes on to say that a mask worn for a long time acquires a life of its own and has to be accepted as such. The Muslim believes in the Jesus of History and refuses to accept the mask' (Jesus a Prophet of Islam by Mohammad Ata ur-Rahim Preface) . People of the Book is the respectful title given to the Jews and the Christians in the Holy Quran. The Muslims are here commanded to invite, O People of the Book! , O Learned People! , O People who claim to be the recipients of Divine Revelation, of a Holy Scripture; let us gather together onto a common platform, 'that we worship none but Allah (God)', because none but God is worthy of worship, not because 'The Lord thy God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me.' (Exodus 20: 25) . But because He is our Lord and Cherisher, our Sustainer and Evolver, worthy of all praise, prayer and devotion. In the abstract the Jews and the Christians would agree to all the three propositions contained in this Quranic verse. In practice they fail. Apart from doctrinal lapses from the unity of the One True God, Allah, may He be praised, there is the question of a consecrated Priesthood (among the Jews it was hereditary also) , as if a mere human being - Cohen or Pope, or Priest, or Brahuman, - could claim superiority apart from his learning and the purity of his life, or could stand between man and God in some special sense. Islam does not recognize priesthood! . The Creed of Islam is given to us here in a nutshell from Holy Quran: 'Say ye: 'We believe in Allah, and the revelation given to us, and to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, and the Tribes (of the Children of Israel) , And that given to Moses and Jesus, and that given to (all) Prophets from their Lord: We make no difference between one and another of them: And we bow to Allah (in Islam) .' ' (the Holy Quran 2: 136) . The Muslim position is clear. The Muslim does not claim to have a religion peculiar to himself. Islam is not a sect or an ethnic religion. In its view all religion is one, for the Truth is one: 'It was the same religion preached by all the earlier prophets.' (the Holy Quran 42: 13) . It was the truth taught by all the inspired Books. In essence it amounts to a consciousness of the Will and Plan of God and a joyful submission to that Will and Plan. If anyone wants a religion other than that, he is false to his own nature, as he is false to God's Will and Plan. Such a one cannot expect guidance, for he has deliberately renounced guidance. Let's look at what Jesus says. In Matthew 5: 17 'Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' Jesus clearly states that he was not sent to abolish the law, the law of which had already existed. So what is mentioned above cannot be discounted. Then Jesus continues to say, in Matthew 5: 18 and 19 'For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.' Jesus here states that not even as much as a dot (tittle) shall not pass from the law. Every thing is kept the way it was. That is why the previous laws cannot be removed or discarded, and those who willfully change these laws 'he shall be called the least in the kingdom of the Lord